1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed generally to transferring personalized accounts from a first service provider to a second service provider, and more particularly to the automated transfer of personalized data information, associated with a first service provider, to a second service provider, such that a user may switch from receiving services from the first service provider to receiving services from the second service provider without being required to manually re-enter the personalizing information with the second service provider.
2. Description of the Background
The use of the Internet as an information tool is commonplace throughout society. The Internet creates accessibility to a large body of information for parties having access to the Internet. Difficulty has arisen in that very numerous formats are in use on the internet to allow for a presentation of this large body of information, and, consequently, it is cumbersome to present information, such as personalized data information, to internet users and internet service providers in a common, efficient manner.
To this end, portal web-sites have been developed to provide Internet users with a predetermined set of links and information displays. These links and displays are were historically common to all users of the portal site, resulting in the provision of information which was of little interest to some users, while not displaying information or links of importance to other users.
In order to improve the efficiency of these portal sites, personalized features were implemented on these sites via the implementation of individualized user profiles. The user profiles define specific interests of the individual user, such as a specific stock that a user desires to track, or the specific profile of a user, such as on email or calendars. The use of active web pages, generated by the information service provider upon an individual's request, allows these pages to be tailored to a multitude of users, without requiring the storage of static information display information.
The ability to personalize pages has not been limited to portal sites, but has also been applied to news, financial, investment and shopping sites as well, for example, particular web-sites may create a customer topic preference list, which is used to present books which are most likely to be of interest to an individual shopper based on the shopper's previous purchases.
The parameters which define an individual's personalizing information are limited by the options implemented by the web-site offering the personalized display. For portal sites, typical parameters include stocks to track, sports teams to follow, a city or location for weather reports, favorite TV channels for programming information, or presentation formats for elements within a display, or, for example, email formatting and handling options, calendar and scheduling preferences, and display preferences, or information generated by a user during use of the portal, such as email, appointments, or telephone calling histories. For example, a book sales web-site might include notations for preferences such as types of fiction read by an individual, musical tastes for record or CD sales, and address and payment information for purchases made by the individual.
The ability to generate personalized web presentations has been based on several technologies for associating personalizing information with an individual user. These technologies include generating scripted web addresses based on an individual's provision of a user access code, such as a user name and a password. The host on which the web site is operating is able to identify the computer originating the request, and graft personalized data information parameters to a base address, forming a scripted address, to which the individual is redirected. The host computer interprets the scripted address as a request for display of the base web page modified pursuant to the grafted parameters. In order for the host computer to be able to understand the grafted material, the material must be appended according to a specific protocol, such that the host can determine what is intended by comparing values at locations with the protocol definitions of those locations. The grafted information may then be used for generating the display associated with the base address.
Storage of the personalized data information for an individual can be accomplished either on the individual's computer, or within a database stored on the web-site's host computer. One tool frequently in use is the storage of a “cookie” on an individual's computer. The cookie contains information, such as when the computer being used by the individual was last used to access the web-site associated with the cookie. Cookies can also be used to hold identifiers associated with the user, or for holding personalizing information for the generation of personalized web displays. Alternatively, where more robust or sensitive information is required, personalized information regarding the individual user and his or her preferences can be stored within a database on the web-site host, where the individual directs the web-site host to recall this information by providing an access instruction, such as submission of a user ID and a password.
Each web-site generally develops its own protocol for storing and implementing personalized data information associated with an individual, due to the fact that each web site may present different options for its users than other web sites. The options become more diverse when preferences are used for specific portal types, such as financial account access portals, club membership portals, or web-store portals. As the internet has evolved, users have been provided with the opportunity to obtain information, to communicate, and to access these services that enable users to manage their personal information and data.
The business success of these portals is dependant on the ability of the site to generate a high hit rate, or number of accesses, by individual users. The more hits, the more an advertiser will pay to have their advertisements shown on the web-site. The primary source for new membership for the portals historically has been first time and beginning Internet users. However, as the Internet has been moving toward saturation, the number of new users dwindles. Thus, as the availability of new Internet users decreases, the ability of a web-service to grow will be dependent on the ability of the web-site to attract customers away from other web-services. Consequently, competition for users in every portal type and category will necessarily increase as “new” users decrease. Once saturation occurs and the new users are exhausted, new and established providers in every category will need to capture established providers' users. However, capturing established users is difficult, because users are less likely to switch service providers due to the extensive setup process with each service provider, and the consequential need to re-enter the same information twice or more.
Therefore, the need exists for a migration method and system for migrating between service providers that uses known methods of data entry and storage for personalized web sites, but that additionally allows for migration by a user to a new service without re-entry by the user of all previously required information for the old service provider.